Archive of
past posts
December 2024
First of all, may
we wish you a very, very happy 2025!
This year, as last, we sent very few paper Christmas
cards. We are getting more and more
conscious of our impact on the environment and the very high cost of postage
demanded by the Royal Mail. So this year
we have donated the savings we made by not buying postage or cards to the RNLI;
thank you to those who made that possible by accepting an e-card instead of
cardboard. There are some for whom we
have no email address, so if you are one of them we ask you to send us an email
address so that you can join the donation next year.
We spent
Christmas this year at Cotherstone – not far from
Barnard Castle here in County Durham.
It’s about an hour away but it was a lovely cottage and a delightful
break after the rigours of the latter part of the year.
Lo took a train
journey to Bristol to see David, her brother, and his wife. They had a lovely lunch together and the
trains were not too delayed. It’s a
while since she took a long train journey like this, but it was much better
than driving that far.
Otherwise, it’s
been a quiet month socially. Although we’ve had a very great deal of wind. Storm Darragh swept
through the UK at the beginning of December.
Thankfully for us, it hit the West of the country far harder than us in
the North East. The West, especially
Wales, got hit very hard indeed with lots of flooding and wind damage and,
sadly, some deaths too.
As usual we
haven’t done a review of the year – you can read this month-by-month blog which
will give you a much better picture than a summary review.
So,
best wishes to you all and let’s see what 2025 can offer us all.
November 2024
After the excitement of
the wedding, November was a little more relaxed. Hannah and Ben got on with
their married life while we spend the early part of the month on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, ostensibly to avoid the noise of
fireworks which frightens Tara, but really because we love it there. Mind you, yobs and other inconsiderate people
in our district continue playing with these explosives into December! We cannot think why Government fails to act
on this issue – would they allow sales of anything as disruptive and dangerous
to members of the general public, unregulated, in any other setting? We think that this pseudo-religious based
event, celebrating a terrorist, has had its day. But that’s just us!
In his role of HM Deputy
Lord-Lieutenant for County Durham, Ian laid a Remembrance wreath at Gainford again on 10th. As always, it was a wonderful Service on the Gainford Green which allows all denominations of
Christianity and other faiths to come together to Remember those who fell, and
continue to fall, it defence of their country.
We took Tara for some
behaviour training – she’s becoming reluctant to go out for walks. This started with the fireworks, of course,
but has got worse since. A few things
were brought to light, largely around our own behaviours towards her ... so,
really, we went for our own behaviour training which Tara watched! Much was explained as we understood that her
eyesight is becoming weaker, especially in the dark. Given that she is a sighthound,
this is a big deal for her and we need to help her with it. Ian understands since his own eyesight is
iffy at best, especially at night.
Otherwise, it was
business as usual in our volunteering activities, which takes up quite a lot of
our time, but is worthwhile always.
October 2024
Let’s get some of the
more mundane things out of the way first, shall we ... this month saw a few
highlights leading up to the big one.
Ian attended the RSGB Convention again.
It was a great one and, having been before (last year), he was
fore-warned about what to book-up for.
This year as well as the usual round of really, really interesting
talks, he attended a microcomputer workshop.
Some of you might remember that Ian taught Computer Science to A-level
back in the day and to him microcomputing was all
about programming a BBC Model B with BASIC and Pascal. Now, it’s about coding an Arduino
or Raspberry Pi in “C”. Things have come
on a very long way!
Apart from that, the
month was taken up by preparations such as hairdos!
Of course the big event
of the month was Hannah and Ben’s wedding.
It’s really difficult to capture an event as significant at this in a
few words on a public blog like this, so please feel free to drop us a note and
ask for more details, photos and so on.
A few people have asked for the script of Ian’s “Father of the Bride”
speech with all the quotes and musical references, so if you’d like a copy
please ask.
Suffice to say (for here)
that it was a wonderful event where many tears of joy were shed and lots of
conversations amongst friends and family, old and new, were had. It was terrific for example, for us to see
Hannah’s friends from her university days again. It was a fantastic day.
September
2024
The disruption as a result of the riots both to society and the
courts died down thank goodness and we only had to deal with the prosecutions
brought by the police as thy analysed CCTV. That took a little while to sort out.
The students that Ian has been taking through their amateur radio
licensing took their exam in the early part of the month. Only one failed, and that was only by a
couple of marks and she’ll retake. The
school is deciding how it wants to take radio forward, if at all. It will really depend on whether a member of
staff is keen. In the meantime, M1UTC is
valid and in place.
We spent a fantastic week in Cornwall, enjoying good weather in
the main and seeing the sights of other parts.
We even adopted a lobster (named Rushey – we
panicked a bit when we had to name it!)
It was a lovely week in a great cabin and we enjoyed ourselves a
lot. Tara loves this place and literally
danced round the garden when we arrived.
Even the travel (which is a long way by UK standards) was good because
we travelled on Sunday and avoided traffic.
Lots and lots of roadworks, though, and we
wondered why traffic is slowed to 50 for no apparent reason at all! Ian put the antenna up again and got lots of
excellent contacts.
August
2024
We had intended to spend a week away at Audlem
during the month, but the disruption to the Courts caused by the local riots
meant we had to change plans. We had
some public protests in Newcastle, Sunderland and Darlington, largely as a
result of social media misinformation following the fatal attack on three
children in Southport – Facebook and their ilk put it
about that an asylum seeker had carried the attack out, when it was nothing of
the sort! It was a sad time for the
country. The Courts went into overdrive
as police identified those who were not peaceful protesters but chose to commit
criminal damage, looting and assault. We
dealt with many people quickly and that meant that things settled down quickly. But it also meant that we had to adjust our
plans.
Ian, however, did get to the DX Commander Open Day. This is the firm that builds amateur radio
antennas, mostly for HF and Callum McCormick (the
owner) opened his place up for enthusiasts to see. It was a brilliant afternoon, where Ian’s
wallet got lightened when he bought a prototype V/UHF antenna for himself. When used the following Sunday, the signal
was described as “end-stopping”.
Lois had an appointment with John Lewis’ personal shopped to buy
the “mother of the bride” dress. The
appointment was highly successful which has a great relief to both Ian and
Hannah (but mostly, I think, Hannah).
The UTC saw A-level, GCSE and BTEC students receiving their
results and the A-level day is always a tense time with all emotions going on
show as students find whether they can move to the university, apprenticeship
or job that they hope to. Ian pops in to
offer moral support and what little advice he can!
We spend a wonderful morning visiting Keele
University (our alma mater as they say).
Since we last visited, some 30 years ago, the place has been
transformed. But the campus itself
including Keele Hall and the lakes are still there
and it was just about possible to see the ghosts of our memories laid out under
the new, smart buildings. It was a great
morning and we are very grateful to Lucy Welch who showed us round.
Hannah’s car blew up in our drive – not literally but it did
arrive in a huge cloud of steam and it was deemed to be beyond mending. They were towed to Vertu
BMW where they negotiated a replacement with Gaz – in
our view their ace salesman (he sold us our new X3) – who fixed them up with a
replacement.
And Ian had his annual haircut!
June/July
2024
We spent some time away during this period (hence the combined
monthly report). In June we went to Ardnamurchan as reported in May – our stay went into
June. It was a fantastic holiday –
completely deserted and very quiet! We
also sent some time in Devon, staying in a village called Beer (I kid you
not!) We’ve spend a few holidays here so
we guess it’s becoming a tradition. This
time, Ian found a hilltop overlooking the sea (both good for radio) and spent a
lovely morning making some excellent contacts.
The Octopus energy survey reported in May (you remember – the one
where they said they didn’t have a heat pump big enough to heat our home) was
followed by an EPC survey. These things
hadn’t been invented when we bought the house!
The house came in as a C, which is OK for a house this age. We were however recommended to insulate our
solid floors, which we don’t have any of!
Hey ho. Although our loft
insulation passed, it wasn’t very good so we spent a happy week emptying the
loft, getting 300mm of insulation added in, building a
platform to house the stuff we store there and then putting it all back in. I use the work “happy” very loosely indeed –
it was really hard work and no fun at all.
But it needed to be done, so we did it!
Ian was guest of honour at New College Durham’s graduation
ceremony in his role as His Majesty’s Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for County
Durham. This was a fantastic and hugely
enjoyable day involving him conferring awards to several hundred students.
Finally, leaving the most exciting until last, we picked up our
new car – another BMW X3. The only
difference from the previous one’s being that this one is blue and petrol!
May 2024
We did the usual day-to-day stuff a lot in the first part of the
month. Getting the
washing machine repaired, for example, and emptying the loft for extra
insulation to be added. The
latter turned out to be a huge job, but we hope it will be worthwhile in the
end. We had a survey to see whether our
house would be suitable to have an Air Source Heat Pump system put in, Octopus
Energy did that for us – they have deals!
It turns out to be a “No” from them because of the size of the house –
it’s just too big for what they can do for us.
Maybe we should just leave it for now until things develop a little
further – new adopters of developing technology are sometimes disappointed.
We had an absolutely fantastic week in a cottage at Achateny on the Ardnamurchan
Peninsula. This was just up the road
from where Hamza Yassin
lives (the wildlife photographer who won Strictly a
couple of years ago) but we didn’t see him.
We had a super time, the weather being changeable but when it was fine
it was very fine indeed! Ian got lots of
new contacts by radio since, apparently, proximity from the sea makes a
difference! He raved about the lack of
noise, both in the radio sense and in the actual sound sense – it was very
peaceful indeed and we both enjoyed the break from our hectic retirement
lives.
It was, of course, also our anniversary – 40 wonderful years of
marriage and we dined on venison sausages (those being the only venison around
pre-stalking season).
April 2024
Is April the first month of Spring? The weather was awful – cold and
raining. But the hour changed and it
was, between the rain, bright and beautiful.
Nature is restarting and we can understand why all beliefs celebrate this
time of year.
We had a short break in a fantastic lodge near a canal marine
between Nantwich and Audlem, in Cheshire early in the
month. It rained more or less solidly
and the roads round about were flooded quite badly , but that didn’t stop us having a great time. The proposed visit to Lois’ sister was
postponed because she wasn’t well, but we did go and see Ian’s mate, Mike. Ian and Mike were close friends when they
were at school and if his name is familiar from this website, it’s because he
supplied the photos of Ian and friends while they were at school (see Our
Vehicles from the menu on the left and navigate to Series 1). It was terrific to rebuild the connection.
Ian (as Deputy Lieutenant) attended the Joint Cadet Forces
presentation at North Durham Academy in Stanley. This was a wonderful event, drawing together
representatives of many of the cadet organisations in the region, including the
RAF Cadets, Army Cadets, Police Cadets and Fire Service Cadets with the
intention of raising the employability skills, self-confidence and self esteem
of students through the activities they offer.
As a bonus, there has been shown to be a marked decrease in Antisocial
Behaviour by young people engaged with effective groups like this. The Cadet groups, some of whom included
students of the Academy themselves, gave demonstrations and presentations to
the whole of North Durham Academy’s Year 8 students (all 250 of them!) Most of the presentations got students
involved directly with practical activities and dignitaries enjoyed some
virtual flying of aircraft, seeing how the Police deal with civil disruption
and helped roll up fire hoses. Ian even
examined rations carried by soldiers on manoeuvres (but, perhaps thankfully,
didn’t have to sample them). Despite
continuous drizzle, the students were in very good spirits indeed, engaging
fully with the activities on offer.
We spent a good deal of our time this month watching the app that
monitors our electricity use now that we’ve had the batteries fitted and transferred
to Octopus Energy’s Flux Tariff. Seeing
zero draw from the grid because we’re using solar power from our roof and
batteries as we cook dinner is a great experience. (To get £50 off if you transfer use
https://share.octopus.energy/soft-raven-379 We get £50 too!)
March 2024
Lots happened in March – mostly to do with the UTC! OFSTED came – so much stress amongst the
staff. Despite assurances from OFSTED
following Ruth Perry’s suicide, things are no less stressful for staff and
inspectors are no less “assertive” in their questioning. But that’s acceptable if the outcome is OK
and while at the time of writing nothing’s been formalised so we can’t report
it here, at the end of the two days, we were “pleased” with our outcome.
You’ll recall that Ian mentioned that he was British Science Week
for the RSGB and, lo and behold, BSW came around. It was cold, raining and miserable so the
planned outdoor activity of working with satellites was called off and instead
Ian set up a radio station at the school.
A (Large) group of students took part, as did some staff, and we had a
good time. The students (and staff) all
found is sufficiently fascinating to want to go on to take a course with Ian to
take their exam for their amateur radio licences. Great stuff!
We enhanced our existing roof-mounted solar panels with a battery
system which means that, if the sun shines, we can run the house into the
evening free of electricity charges.
Unfortunately the sun hasn’t shined very much, in fact it has rained solidly
for most of the month! Fortunately we
can charge the batteries up when the electricity is cheap – overnight – and
then use it when it’s expensive (peak hours).
All good and the app has kept us entertained
for much of the month! Great big shout-out for Sustainable Energy Systems of Washington
who were great and for Octopus Energy who provided some excellent advice and
made the transfer to export very easy.
(To get £50 off if you transfer use
https://share.octopus.energy/soft-raven-379 We get £50 too!)
February
2024
February was the wettest one on record! It seems that it never stopped – there were
some days that were less rainy than others but they tended to have drizzle instead. We got
little flooding, though – we’re hilly here – but the south of England got it
very much worse than we did. The farmers
are not happy since their crops are rotting in the ground and we are expecting
increased food prices as a result ... but what doesn’t cause increased prices
one way or another?
February brought lots of visitors to our AirBnB
(https://airbnb.co.uk/h/durham-brandon-flat),
which is always nice to see. Some come
and go without us seeing them, others interact with us and we have met some very
nice people. At one point we were
turning the place round every couple of days.
We had lots of sittings this month, each having two new
magistrates as mentees, and we had some interesting cases between us. Lois went to Doncaster to see the dance performance
that Anjie (Lois’ niece and god-daughter) had put on
with the dance workshop she owns and runs.
While there, Lois was able to see her sister who is suffering from
dementia. Ian was busy this month
working with the RSGB as British Science Week co-ordinator but also organising
his own day at the UTC next month where he will introduce students to amateur
radio.
January
2024
Happy 2024 to you all!
January was a month for “hunkering down” in. It rained pretty well non-stop, although we
had it better here than some parts of the country. Not very much happened, really – January is
often that sort of month which given the weather was probably for the
good. It never really got cold, though –
we had a bit of snow, but not very much dangerous icy conditions.
Lois slipped and got a bit of a concussion which required a trip
to A&E for a checkup. It was very scary at the time because she
didn’t make a great deal of sense while it was happening. She’s fine now, though – which is a huge
relief.
Ian got asked by the RSGB to take on the role of British Science
Week Coordinator. BSW is a national
10-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths, marked by
schools, libraries, museums, businesses and more. Ian had already decided to do something at
the UTC where he’s governor, so this fitted in well. Check out rsgb.org/bsw
to see what he’s been doing.
Otherwise it was business as usual for us. Something of a boring report really ... we’ll
try harder next month.
December
2023
First of
all, may we wish you a very Happy New Year and all our best wishes for 2024!
This year we switched largely to ecards. If you didn’t get one and would have expected
one from us, please let us know. This
worked really well and meant that we could send some cash to charities instead
of to Royal Mail. All
good.
December was quite a busy month, one way or another. Lots of sittings for both
of us, a trip to the theatre and some time away. Let’s concentrate on the interesting ones –
we went to see “A Jazzy Christmas” with Paul Edis at
the Glasshouse International Centre for Music.
This used to be the Sage, Gateshead, but changed its name when Sage (the
software people) decided to sponsor another place nearby – one can’t have two
Sages in Gateshead. We now have an
excellent and reliable dog-sitting person whom Tara loves, so we can get out
more. We stopped going to Paul’s show
when we got Tara and it’s nice to return.
Hall 2 (the round one) is a fantastic place – one sits up above the
performers and always get a super view. The sound is, as one would expect, fantastic.
We spent Christmas at Romaldkirk, near
Barnard Castle (no jokes, please – they’ve all been done). We decided not to go too far this year and
when we saw the Arran Ferry updates, we were pleased we didn’t. It was very windy indeed – Storm Gerrit was around – so it was wet and VERY windy. Have we mentioned that it was windy? But surprisingly warm. We AirBnB-ed a
lovely cottage right in the middle of the village and next to the church. Great thick walls, so
lovely and warm. We all loved it
because it was very quiet and peaceful. A lovely Christmas.
Well, that’s another year gone!
As we write this, it is 1st January 2024. We always love looking back on the old year,
but prefer looking forward to the new one.
What next?
November
2023
You’ll remember that we were on the Isle of Arran at the end of
October, to avoid the fireworks. We came
back at the beginning of November, travelling quite late on bonfire night
itself. This was a great way to enjoy
fireworks – in a warm car and thus insulated from the cold and more importantly
the noise. But perhaps best was the fact
that we could see some of the lovely displays from way back so could see them in
their entirety. Beautiful colour, no
crick in the neck and no noise – perfect!
We went to see Hannah and Ben’s wedding venue for October, Shotton
Grange on the other side of Newcastle.
It’s a lovely choice that they’ve made and we were really impressed by
the thought that the venue have put into making their day go well. Can you believe there is even a “dog
chaperone” whom we have booked to look after Tara for
the whole of the day and into the evening.
What a wonderful idea! It means
that Tara, being something of a princess, can get all the attention she
deserves! And Hannah, who is also
something of a princess, can get our full attention! (Tara is cheaper, though.) We also went for a meal just round the corner
at the Snowy Owl to discuss detail, which was lovely.
Ian did his bit on Remembrance Sunday. As always, it was a lovely event on
Gainford’s Green and thankfully the rain held off.
Ian did one of the country’s very first Single Justice Service
sessions, where a magistrate sits on their own in front of a PC and makes
judgements on things like TV licence evasion, DVLA notices, that sort of thing,
and then decides on the appropriate penalty (normally a fine). This is a new way forward and the first session
was a bit of a shakedown – Ian was able to point out some shortcoming before
the whole system went fully operational.
So, all in all, a busy month with lots going on! In December we might re-engage with Strictly – we’ve avoided it up to now but it does offer a
great countdown to Christmas!
October
2023
There seemed to be a lot happening in October! We got our Covid and ‘flu jabs (Ian at the
same time, Lois about a week apart).
It’s always reassuring to get those done, with very few side effects
this time.
Ian attended the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) annual
convention which took place in Milton Keynes.
He met lots of interesting people and attended some super presentations
... and came back with some ideas for future work, especially at the UTC.
We were almost fully booked in the AirBnB for this month so met
some really nice people doing interesting things. We even had a lovely couple from Brazil.
As the month went on, the yobs of the area bought up fireworks and
threw them around – as yobs do. Three
things struck us (none of them actual fireworks, thankfully): first, why are
fireworks so much noisier now than they used to be – when we were young,
fireworks were colourful and fun, not simply noisy; second, why are people
spending significant amounts of money on things that are gone on, literally, a
flash and a bang when we are supposed to be in a cost-of-living crisis; and
third, we do we have a government who are happy to allow anyone to buy
explosives on a whim? Whatever, fireworks,
especially loud ones, freak Tara out which was kind of OK when they bangs
happen on bonfire night because we could deal with it, but now they start in
mid-October and go on well into November.
This year, we went to Arran and missed the worst of it because Arran do things quietly!
They don’t do anything less enjoyably, just in an organised and quiet
way! We had a wonderful time and Tara
was able to enjoy her walks again.
And so we begin the countdown to Christmas...
September
2023
The bulk of September was taken up by a fortnight in the West
Country, visiting first Cornwall (near Truro) and the up to Devon (Beer for the
fourth year). The run down to Cornwall
to start the holiday was a long one, but very easy and we stayed for a week at
a fantastic cabin within 3 miles of Truro, which is lovely in itself. Ian erected his radio antenna (much to the
surprise of the hosts – it’s over 9m tall) and got a whole load of new contacts
with his mobile rig. We’ll write up the
trip properly in our travel blog, but the big news was that this trip allowed
us to complete the “six-points tour”, which we’ve been
planning for about 20 years! Land’s End and Lizard Point (the latter being the southerly-most in
the British mainland). See the six-points
tour blog in “Our Adventures”.
The weather was perfect for the whole of our visit and while some found
it too hot, our position at the top of a hill meant we got a lovely
breeze. Later we thoroughly enjoyed our
week in Beer, Devon and went on the tram again.
We stayed in the same house as we have for the last couple of years so
know our way around – the steep hills don’t get any easier, though!
The rest of September was taken up with the usual round of
sittings and so on, the weather having turned rapidly to autumn – we seem to
have gone through the seasons very quickly indeed!
August
2023
With it being the school holidays, and with us being retired, we
stayed at home this month. As it
happened, summer didn’t really start and we went from a bit of nice weather in
July to autumn in August; certainly the weather thought it was autumn, with
lots and lots of rain. Mind you, it
stayed quite warm so the garden went berserk and it was possible on a quiet day
to hear things growing. Luxuriant is
probably the right word!
In Court, we both picked up new mentees and Ian met them all at
the Magistrates’ Swearing-In ceremony where he appeared as King – well, kind of
... as Deputy Lieutenant he took the place of the Lord-Lieutenant. See what I mean?
We spent a lovely long-weekend in Oxford looking up Lois’ cousins
who we hadn’t met before. Lots of
traffic in Oxford! We made use of the
buses quite a lot, which Tara kind of enjoyed.
We also visited Diddly Squat Farm Shop, made famous by Jeremy Clarkson’s
Amazon programme “Clarkson’s Farm”. We
thought we’d go early to miss the crowds that we were sure would turn up around
lunchtime and early afternoon; but we didn’t expect the crowds of people that
we came across! It was absolutely rammed
full, with all the car parks full and hoards of people walking from where
they’d abandoned their cards by the roadside into the farm. The queue to get into the
shop looked like something out of a Disney theme park. We elected to miss this particular
attraction! We also (we think) saw
Harry’s Farm (from YouTube), but that was more of a locked gate across a road –
no crowds there. During our stay we made
use of Travelodge, which was excellent and which Tara really did enjoy!
A-level results came and went, as did GCSE results a week
later. I was great to go into the UTC as
governor to see the students get their results and to have confirmed where they
would be going next ... or in some cases making new decisions because they did
worse or better than they’d thought. Always lovely mornings.
June/July
2023
These months were very much a “catch up with all the things we
haven’t done and should have” time of year! Nothing much that
could be termed exciting. The car got a service, Lois got her final
appraisal as Presiding Justice (she has now passed all three required and has
been approved to Preside over Courts); Ian did a lot of similar appraisals on
other people in court. So all pretty boring really.
Two things stood out for us … Lois painted the deck – no mean feat
given its size and it looks fabulous now. Also, Ian achieved his “DXCC award”.
DXCC means 100 – C in roman numerals and DX or long distance contacts. To
achieve this, 100 different countries have to be contacted and they have to
confirm the contact. A confirmation (or QSL as it is called) is that a two-way
contact has been made and both ends agree that it took place at a certain time
and date and at a certain frequency. The DXCC tends to be the first milestone
of awards people get and he is very chuffed! He’s also half-way towards his WAS (Worked
All States - of the US) certificate which is surprisingly difficult because
while the Eastern side of the US is fairly close, the Western side certainly is
not! Although he has successfully
contacted Alaska!
May 2023
The big event at the beginning of the month was, of course, the
Coronation of Charles and Camilla. That
was quite a busy time for Ian with a couple of services and even a tree planting
ceremony! We also took part in “The big
lunch” on Gainford Green which was lovely, and we contributed coronation
chicken sandwiches, which appeared fitting!
We watch the Coronation itself, of course – a chance in a lifetime maybe
– and wondered what the full version for the Late Queen must have been like
given that this was a stripped down version.
Anyway, it was a terrific weekend!
Ian did some sittings up at South Shields Magistrates’ Court
(that’s away from his home area) which he found really interesting and will
return for more if possible.
Our anniversary was at its usual time but we went away this year,
travelling all the way up to Altnaharra.
If you think you’ve heard of it, you probably have since it regularly
hold the record for the coldest place in the UK … not for our trip, though,
which was lovely weather.
April 2023
Well, we didn’t do very much for Easter except a bit of garden
tidying which was much needed after the winter.
It’s been such a cold April that going outside hasn’t been that
pleasant, really, so we haven’t. The
only advantage is that the temperature means that nothing very much is growing
and although the grass has been cut a couple of times, it hasn’t really needed
it.
The high point was our visit to East Anglia as part of our six-points tour project.
We stayed in Caister and visited Great Yarmouth, reliving a bit of Ian’s
childhood. Lois visited a couple of
places from her ancestry searches, including the church in Ormesby St Margaret
which would have been the parish church in their day. We also visited Potter Heigham and couple of
other notable places. This being
Norfolk, nothing much has changed since Ian remembers it! Ness Point, near Lowestoft, is the most
Easterly point in mainland Great Britain and is the fourth of our Six Points
Tour. More about that
in the Travels with a Greyhound Blog which you can find in Adventures or by
clicking here.
Ian has contacted 99 countries by radio (see graphic above) … so
close to the 100 which is a bit of a landmark – he’s still working on it!
March 2023
March was dominated by our voluntary activities with nearly every
day having something in it that saw us working for others. That’s not a moan, it just identifies that we
have largely replaced full-time jobs with voluntary jobs for the good of others
– thus putting a good deal back into society.
That makes us feel good, so it’s selfish really! We did find the opportunity to have lunch out
a couple of times, which was great, and we had a wonderful takeaway from a new
(to us) place just round the corner that Tara led us to during a walk –
following her nose, so to speak.
In preparation for Ian’s plans to take his radio to high, out of
the way places, we got a tow bar fitted to the car so that we can use the
caravan again … and bought a little trailer on eBay to replace the big, heavy
older one that we’ve had for many years.
The hour change caused us significant disruption as ever – we
really don’t like it and like it less now that we can choose rising and
bedtimes ourselves. We remind government
at this time of year that we’re not working in mills any more!
Lois took two days away to visit her sister and other more distant
relatives over in Shropshire and Hampshire, which she enjoyed hugely. While she was away, Ian restrung his cobweb
antenna. And we gave the flat its spring
clear ready for the new AirBnB season, for which we have two bookings already.
February
2023
This time of year doesn’t usually see much action; indeed previous
years have seen a combined entry for Jan and Feb. Perhaps it’s the good weather (often
surprisingly warm and no snow at all!!) that’s kept things ticking along.
Lois and Hannah spent a lovely day with relatives in Doncaster – a
long drive but very worthwhile. It’s
always good to catch up and Hannah hadn’t seen them for ages (Ben, by the way,
is off skiing with a party of students from the UTC). We went to Greatham to take part in the
annual “Snowdrop Walk” which is always a delight.
Ian continues to have great fun with his radio, now that he’s
fully licensed. More details are on the
M0KEO page accessed through the menu. In
short, though, his latest QSOs (contacts) go as far afield as Japan (12,349
km), Indonesia (12,003 km), Brazil
(9,614 km) and South Africa (9,405 km); they include the USA, the Azores and
Ceuta & Melilla which he’d never heard of but is a Spanish possession in
North Africa.
Towards the end of the month, we all went on a bus into Durham,
Ian & Lois using their bus passes!
Tara went too – the first time on a bus for her! She was great on the bus and really enjoyed
the view as we travelled.
January
2023
After the excitement of December with all that went on then, it’s
been nice to slow down a bit and relax into the New Year. Highlights in January were, of course, our
birthdays and we went out for a lovely meal at the Kingslodge Inn in Durham –
one of the few places where we can take Tara to enjoy the celebrations with us
(although, in fairness, she slept through most of it!) It’s been a long time since we went out for a
birthday meal, with everything that’s been going on, and we thoroughly enjoyed
it!
Along with the birthday came the pension AND THE BUS PASS for
Ian! We always feel that the bus pass is
something of a milestone to achieve … and now we have both achieved it.
Ian had a haircut (he has one annually whether he needs it or not)
and the rest of the month was taken up mostly with sittings, HoG & UTC
meetings and so on. Ian attended
(virtually) the UHI Research Conference, which was excellent and as Deputy
Lieutenant, the Holocaust Memorial Celebration in Darlington (see photo
above). He also set up his new radio
equipment and erected his aerials (see M0KEO from the menu on the left for
details and pictures).
December
& review of 2022
December was dominated by two things – Christmas (of course) and
Ian’s radio exam! The latter first …
regular readers will remember that Ian has been studying for his Amateur Radio
Licence since the first Covid lockdown.
He took his Foundations exam in June 2020, his Intermediate exam in
December 2020 and then took a while to get to his Full exam. He took that this month and passed (with
Merit) and is therefore now a Full licence holder with callsign M0KEO. The step from Intermediate to Full was a big
one, involving some significant electronic and mathematical work, hence the
long period … we were also out of lockdown by then, so life got in the way a
bit! Ian wants to do a big “shoutout” to
the team at Bath-Based Distance Learning (BBDL) and especially Steve Hartley
and Martyn Vann with whom he worked to get the necessary knowledge. They were absolutely first class tutors with
a brilliantly organised and delivered on-line course.
We went away for Christmas- not far, just to Boulmer in
Northumberland. We booked a wonderful
cottage right on the beach (about 10 metres away to the beach and the sea at
low tide). It was very peaceful and
quiet, both of which we needed. We had
the best time, eating from Tesco’s Festive Food range and thoroughly enjoying
every moment.
We thought about doing a review of the year, but thought better of
it and instead have chosen one or two significant happenings each month – here
they are:
January: Birthdays, continued recovery from
lockdown, and Storms Malik and Corrie
February: Storms Dudley and Eustace - lost
tiles!
March: Visit to Scotch Corner and a
lovely day in Richmond.
April: Lois begins her terms as Chair
of Trustees of Hospital of God, Greatham and as Deputy Bench Chair. Insulation
and render completed.
May: New garage door and trip to
Altnaharra for our wedding anniversary. Visited John O'Groats
and Dunnet Head as part of the 6-points tour.
June: Successful Summer Solstice observation at the stone circle build by Mike Green in Beer,
Devon. HM The Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
July: G3 flat reunion (G3 was Ian's
flat at University).
August: Hannah & Ben got engaged. Great
(sometimes too hot) weather!
September:
HM The Queen died. Several Lieutenancy representations. We went to Ardnamurchan
point as part of the 6-points tour.
October: Hannah and Ben moved into their new
house. Tara had 11 teeth removed.
November: Tried (and failed) to avoid interminable
fireworks.
December: Ian passed his Amateur Radio Full
Licence examination.
November
2022
November was characterised by the odd weather (very warm indeed
and wet). But the down side was the
fireworks, which now seem to run from the last week in October to the second
week in November! It’s annoying for
everyone, but causes real distress for Tara and many other pets. It never ceases to amaze us just how selfish
and thoughtless our fellow citizens are – there were very loud bangs going off
late into the evening on several days which brought youngsters sleeplessness
too. In our youth, fireworks were all
about colour but now they’re all about bangs.
What a shame! We tried all sorts
of things for Tara, from copious amounts of valerian and skullcap tablets (we
refer to it as “Tara’s Valium”) and long road trips down the A1! Getting away from bangs is becoming
particularly frustrating for us and very stressful for her. It was all made worse because there was a
marked decline in organised displays causing an increase in home garden
events. The amount of money being,
literally, blown away is staggering.
On to better things. The Remembrance Sunday service at Gainford
was absolutely lovely. The rain held off
and we all went along. Ian laid the
wreath on behalf of His Majesty as usual and Tara enjoyed herself, especially
being invited into church for coffee afterwards. We have a long term tenant with us at the
moment, a post-doctoral from Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) working at Durham
who will be here until April and be came with us too, experiencing for the
first time some of the culture of rural England. It was a lovely day.
Tara had a grooming and had a mound of undercoat (the insulating
fur that grows under the top, glossy layer, that keeps
her warm in winter and cool in summer) removed.
Although greyhounds are not noted for shedding, they tend to shed a bit
with the seasons. She’s a lot sleeker
now!
We have resisted the urge to begin Christmas decorating in
November!
October
2022
We thought that this was a boring run-of-the-mill month after
September; but actually it’s been quite busy.
There was a fast turnaround of Prime Ministers which gave the BBC
trouble because it meant that they just had to devote the entirety of
their news output to who would be the next one … but they love politics so they
coped!
More importantly, Tara had eleven teeth removed – poor thing. No-one with experience of older dogs shows
any surprise at that number, but it surprised us … and her! They have 42 normally – 10 more than us, and
given that we’ve had a few out in our time, she’s still ahead in the number of
teeth! The poor thing was very miserable
for a few days afterwards, and the carpets took some cleaning with the amount
of blood that came from her mouth, but she soon rallied. Yobs with fireworks next – oh bliss!
Hannah and Ben have finally moved in to their new house, in
Birtley (just up the road), after many delays caused, it seems, by solicitors
at both ends of the purchase. We were
all worried that the deal might be stalled by the sudden hike in mortgage rates
caused by the current hassles in the world, but the Halifax stuck by them and
held it; they have done well. It’s a
lovely house and they are busy turning it into a home. The excitement is palpable! They appear to be moving much of our loft in
to their house, supplemented by a pantechnicon load from IKEA! But it’s great to see them so happy in their
new place.
We both had our Covid boosters and our flu jabs, both were as
uneventful as ever! As well as feeling
more protected, we believe that it’s a societal duty to take opportunities to
be properly vaccinated. We know that
some people don’t agree, but that’s up to them.
Finally this month, we were delighted to see that the Darlington
Retired Greyhound Trust had resumed their monthly walks in Hardwick Park. We went along and it was great (for all of
us) to catch up with some old friends from the last time which was pre-Covid!
September
2022
Well, what a month that was.
At the start of the month we had a Queen and now we have a King! We all received the news of the end of Her
Majesty's reign with shock and sadness – while we knew it was coming, it all happened a bit fast.
Our thoughts have been with the Royal Family as we watched them grieve
their loss very publically.
Death is inevitable for us all.
How we are judged is not predetermined but rather we are judged on our
impact on others. We all play our part, whether royal
or commoner, in making the world a brighter, warmer, more tolerant and
compassionate place and the Queen united a nation by her work ethic, dedication
and service. Her Majesty was an anchor of permanence and stability for us
during some of the darker times we have experienced and she did so with warmth
and affection for and service to the people she ruled. We think she will be judged very well indeed
for her impact on us and our society and community.
May she rest in peace. What is most important for us to remember is
that her legacy will live on. The light
has now passed to the next generation and it is for them to build on that
legacy. And so we move forward, out of
the Second Elizabethan era into one ruled by a new King – King Charles III –
and enter the third Carolean era.
We know we have readers of this blog from all over the world, so
it’s maybe important to mention what we saw this month - things we experienced
for the first time in living memory for most of us here. It’s over 70 years since it happened last
time in 1952. It’s easy to be drawn along
in the maelstrom of events without pausing to understand the importance of it
all. Unlike many countries, we don’t
have a WRITTEN constitution, but what we saw in September was our constitution
in action – it’s there alright!
As His Majesty gets himself into his new role, we shall all be
able to see how he does. So, as we
herald our new era, our new King, we think we can do so with confidence that he
knows what to do and how to do it; that he is not afraid to work hard for us
all and to do the right thing. We
consider myself to be one of his loyal subjects and as such we have confidence
that he will continue the work of our Queen, having learned from her - but he
will do it in his own way.
We all have new things to learn … remembering to say “God save the
King” is fairly straightforward, but remembering to sing “Send HIM victorious”
in the national anthem might take us a little longer.
During the month, as one the Deputies to His Majesty’s
Lord-Lieutenant, Ian had a lot to do – he attended and spoke at a number of
events including speaking to 400 teenagers and at church services in
tribute. Each, as one might expect,
needed a different speech. Busy! And we also spent a lovely week (nearly) away
visiting Ardnamurchan Point (furthest West in the British Isles and much more
detail in the Travel Blog in Adventures) and Fort William.
August
2022
August was a much more straightforward month (for a change!) Instead of going away along with the flood of
other people taking advantage of school holidays and no Covid restrictions, we
stayed at home and enjoyed our house and garden, got on with some maintenance
jobs and, along with others, sweltered in the heat. No hosepipe bans here, of course – we’d have
to empty Keilder Water first and since that was built to supply the incoming
Teesside industry that never came, that’ll take a while! That meant we could keep everything green and
growing when those in the south of England couldn’t. It was also cooler here than down south,
which we appreciated.
It was great to see one of Ian’s PhD students who visited from
Oman. They spent some time discussing
his work face to face rather than over MS Teams, which was great, and also took
the opportunity to do some sightseeing round Durham.
Otherwise it was pretty much business as usual, except for one
stand-out event was that Ian represented the Lieutenancy at the Durham Youth
Council Young People’s Awards celebrating the professional, personal, physical
or academic achievements of young people here in County Durham. Every now and
again an event stands out not only as heart warming but also as reinforcement
of our faith in our young people to build a safe, secure and effective society. The event was wholly organised by the young
people of the Youth Council themselves, and it went faultlessly – itself a
tribute to them. The intention of the
organisation is to encourage young people to be more involved in making
decisions about issues and services that affect us all, giving children and
young people a ‘collective voice’ that can listened to and acted upon by the
important decision makers. Ian was there
to speak a little but also to announce prizes to those who had shown
outstanding achievement – the photograph shows all the prize winners – by doing
something positive for their local area and the people who live here.
Tara was going to have some teeth out, but that was postponed
because the vet’s equipment broke down!
June and
July 2022
We had a complicated June, starting with lots of sittings and
Hospital of God stuff leading up to a (now almost traditional) visit to Beer in
Devon for the Solstice. It was a
terrific journey down – it’s quite a long way – and we got to our cottage in
excellent time. This time we’d upgraded
a bit and had a really lovely cottage in Beer through Original Cottages (www.originalcottages.co.uk). It was beautiful, very comfy and with
beautiful décor and excellent equipment.
Furthermore it had its own parking spot and those are like hens’ teeth
in Beer! Last year we had to spend a
fortune in a public car park and carry our luggage and Tara clobber
a very long way! Having our own spot
right next to the cottage was wonderful!
This year we DID get to see the solstice from Mike’s very own stone
circle (check out last year’s entry in the archive if you don’t know what we’re
talking about). It was a beautiful
evening with a cloudless sky. Amazing to
see the stone circle “working properly”.
Lois had a Teams meeting on one of the days, so Ian took Tara on the
tram from Seaton to Colyton – her vast trip on a tram, and actually the first
time on any public transport. After the
first five minutes of not being sure, she found it great. It was a lovely holiday catching up with Mike
and Carol again and just doing tourist stuff!
While we will be going to Beer again next year, we can leave it later in
the year next time because we’ve seen the solstice properly!
At a checkup with the vet, Tara was found to be losing weight and
we got some very clear and unambiguous dietary advice: “Take her off raw meat
NOW”. We thought that raw food is a good
thing, but apparently not … not for greyhounds
anyway! So she went onto Pedigree Petfoods
dry food and after a couple of weeks is now back to
her “proper” weight with a very sleek coat to go with it. Note to selves … don’t be taken in by
advertising rhetoric! You’d think we’d
have learned by now!
The Lord-Lieutenant succumbed to Covid so Ian got to go to some
really interesting official events, such as the Fire Brigade Long Service
Awards which was great fun.
July started with Sunderland’s graduations, which were back to
normal after a couple of years of zoom events.
It was absolutely super to see students crossing the stage again and the
atmosphere is undiminished. On one of
the days, Prof Peter Smith got his honorary Doctor of Technology which was
richly deserved and great to be part of.
When Ian was at university, he became good friends with three
people (as well as Lois of course) and they shared a flat together – Barnes G3
for those who know Keele. Back in 2018
Helen – one of the four flatmates – set about trying to get a reunion of the
four of us, plus Lois who was around at the time, plus the partners of the
others. That was before Covid struck of
course. In July we finally got together
for a wonderful evening of alcohol and reminiscences. It only took four years to get together! As Helen put it, “It took a global pandemic
to keep us apart”. The evening was
magical, actually, with super food, plenty of drink, and very, very good
company. We suspect that those memories
will stay with us for a long time!
We also caught up with some family who design and manufacture farm
machinery in Essex! Well, you do don’t
you!
Then we got to enjoy our house and garden as the children broke up
for their school holidays and we stayed at home! Lots and lots of little things to do, but
that’s always enjoyable stuff.
May
2022
May began as April ended – with the
clearing up after the renderers had departed.
What a mess they left! However,
with the help of the great local tradesmen we know, things have got sorted out
more or less. The grass is still a bit
of a mess, with lumps of dried render all over the place, but apart from that
we’re happy. It’s
late May as we’re writing this, and we’re still in Altnaharra as we reach the
end of our anniversary celebration break.
Last evening we had our traditional dinner at the Altnaharra Hotel –
we’ve been doing this since 1990! And it
didn’t disappoint. In 1994, we had
Hannah with us in her carrycot and this year we had Tara with us on her rug. A lovely meal with lovely
people in a lovely place. We got
into conversation with Walter, the ghillie, who regaled us with fabulous
stories from his 62 year in the job. A
ghillie is a person who is employed to advise and
support visitors’ fishing (in this case) and hunting. Fascinating. We also got talking to a guy working on the
Creag Riabhach wind farm site, which was very interesting indeed – hearing how
they transport the 22 huge generator units from Inverness here, by road, was
amazing. He though it would be working
later this year and as we drove passed the site we could see that they were well
on the way.
Earlier in the month, we had a new garage door fitted – the old
one was about 30 years old and was, frankly, knackered! The new one is very swish and quiet! We went for dinner with Hannah and Ben (and
Tara) to the Kings Lodge Inn in Durham (used to be Finnbar’s) which was
brilliant. Ian went to a conference in
Edinburgh with UHI, involving his first train journey since before the
lockdowns started.
So, we have decided to complete the Six Points Tour at long
last! Regular visits to this website
(and we know you’re out there) might remember that some years ago we planned a
road trip visiting the four furthest compass points on the UK mainland, plus
the two points furthest apart (hence Six Points). For many reasons we never did it, but we are
now determined to complete it. As a
start, and while we were up at the top end of the country, we did John O’Groats
and Dunnet Head (furthest North) so that’s a third of it completed. We intend to do Ness Point (furthest East) or
Ardnamurchan Point (furthest West) later this year and then the last three next
year. Our progress on that plan will be
shown on our travel blog that can be found via the Adventures link in the menu
on the left.
April
2022
April was dominated by mess! More of that in a minute…
Ian’s journey to his Full Radio
Amateur Licence continued; and we realise that we haven’t mentioned that
much. An update is called for! Now, those of you who are avid readers of
this blog (and we know you’re out there and we appreciate your comments) will
remember that back in December 2020, Ian passed his Intermediate licence radio
exam. There are three stages to full
licence, Foundation, Intermediate and Full with each having its own
privileges. He did this, mostly, through
self study and the next step should have been Full. But when he looked at the licence syllabus
and manual, he got a bit scared by the electronics and maths required. He realised that he needed a proper course of
study with support from tutors so looked around for a course to join. Locally, things haven’t really got back to
speed after Covid, so he looked around for distance learning and the main one
is “Bath Based Distance Learning” which seems to be accepted as the best
amongst those who know. They only run
one Full course a year from August to December – the next one being 2022 and it
was September 2021 now, so Ian applied for and signed up for that. He was then given the option of doing the
Intermediate course from January to May as a revision … which he took up! That’s got him into a lecture session every
Wednesday evening, homework, weekly tests and a local tutor to work with. He’s found it great to be learning again and
in a structured way. The course is
terrific, really good. More next month when it’ll have finished.
Easter was very quiet for us. Retirement means that we tend not to go
anywhere when other people are on holiday … so we hid!
After Easter the mess started! The upstairs of our house is “wrapped” in
insulation – it has a 2” layer of glassfibre insulation attached to the
outside, covered by a thin layer of render.
That was done nearly 30 years ago shortly after we moved in and extended
the house significantly. Over the years,
we’ve repainted the topcoat of the render but over the last two or three years
it has started to separate and crack.
Untouched it would soon have got water behind it and the situation would
have got far worse very quickly. So the
time had come to strip off the loose render and have it redone. We got quotes (which were quite scary) and
selected a contractor. The scaffolding
went up just after Easter (closing off the garage) and the work started shortly
afterwards. We were warned that it would
be messy … and they were not wrong! It
was also very disruptive in that we had to clear the drive each morning and
it’s surprising how dark it feels inside when there’s scaffolding all round the
house! This blog entry is being written
in very early May and it’s now finished.
And it looks terrific … but we still have a lot of mess to clear
up. It’ll be tidy and clean again soon!
March
2022
March was a fairly easy month. We enjoyed some lovely, warm days (later
changing to very cold and snow, which was not so nice) and had a few great days
out.
We got a little more work done in the
garden – a larger back door step (fits a hound and a person at the same time,
while before it was big enough for neither!) and a great little bin store area
which Graham Hardy built for us. Tidies things up very nicely. We got a quote for a new garage door and for
renovations to the upstairs insulation/rendering system which after 27 years of
weather is now showing its age. More
details of both of these next month when they should be done.
We had a couple of nights away,
too. Really setting up as a test to see
whether Tara really needed a cage to sleep in when we are all in the same room
(we don’t) and to remind ourselves what going away was like! We didn’t go far, and don’t laugh, just to the
Scotch Corner Travelodge. It was actually
great fun and since it’s on an A1(M) Service Area had
plenty of shops and catering round about.
There was also a very nice dog walk area (with plenty of rabbits to keep
Tara happy) and a lovely walk down into a little village called Middleton Tyas.
Very nice indeed to look at and enjoy,
although disappointing in that a pub which looked inviting and would have been
a nice stroll away was never open even though its website claimed it was! We had a really lovely day in Richmond;
enjoying their free two hours of town-centre parking (we wish more places would
adopt this practice rather than rooking visitors as much as they can get away
with). We had a lovely lunch sitting out
in the sun as well as very good tea from The Little Drummer Boy tearoom which we
recommend wholeheartedly.
Lois went down to London for her
Deputy Bench Chairs’ course – a good course by all accounts and the first time
she had undertaken train travel BCE (Before Covid Era)!
A slow, but good, month!
February
2022
Wow, another month flits past! Or should I say blew past, because the middle
of the month was dominated by two more storms – Dudley and Eunice. Franklin also hit the UK, but that was the
south and didn’t affect us much. Dudley
and Eunice took a tile off the roof and into the back garden and with all the
roofers of the area booked until June, we thought we might have a problem. Luckily a message to Steve at SB Roofing
Solutions got an immediate response and a repair within 24 hours, even over a
weekend! That was fantastic
service! The repair that we thought was
one tile ended up with five being replaced because although only one had blown
off, there was more damage up top.
We went out for a Valentine’s Day
lunch on 14th, which would have been lovely except the place we went
to was closed – serves us right for not checking. We returned on Wednesday and thoroughly
enjoyed our special lunch. We have found
a super place on a farm near Sacriston who allow dogs into the café (and also
have a great picnic area and dog walk, and a farm butcher with wonderful
meat). We can recommend it – look up
Broom House Farm (https://www.broomhousedurham.co.uk/).
Another job was to sort out the piece
of ground behind the AirBnB apartment.
This was a dump-cum-compost heap and looked a real mess behind a
horrible little fence. It wasn’t nice
for our guests to look out onto so we got it sorted out and it’s now a nice
little raised area with some pots on it.
Much brighter and more attractive outside the window.
On the last Sunday of the month, we
went on the Greatham Snowdrop walk, which was absolutely lovely. The groundsmen of the Hospital of God at
Greatham had laid the path out using fallen branches after the storms and
marked it with a carpet of fresh straw so that it wasn’t muddy. Just wonderful.
January
2022
Well, a year gone and another
begun! And COVID is still with us (and
like an unwanted guest, shows all the signs of settling in for a long
stay!) We sometimes do a review of the
year, but we’re not going to do that – you can read it in the archive (see
below) in detail!
So what of January? Like many Januarys, it wasn’t very
eventful. We had our birthdays, of
course, but didn’t go out as we usually do, preferring to stay in and eat very
well indeed! We had to put off a visit
to an old friend because of omicron, but it should be OK for next month. Precautions were steadily lifted, in England
anyway, which we think is giving people something of a false sense of security
– we even heard someone say “Well, the Covid problem is now over!” … tell that to the (mostly
unvaccinated) people who are populating the ICUs! But it is nice to see people conversing
again. HMCTS, of course, are ignoring
Government advice and have kept precautions in place – that’s up to them!
We had some lovely people in the
AirBnB, including someone from Italy early in the month who
had to isolate until she got her 48 hour PCR test back. That was interesting because it meant she
couldn’t buy food! We fixed her up with
a food parcel to keep her going and all was well!
Our porch is now finished with the
step being built! Terrific.
At the end of the month, Storm Malik
(29th) and then Storm Corrie (overnight 30th-31st)
hit us. These did more damage to us than
Arwen (which was actually more severe overall) and the whole of the fence
between us and next-door went over … about 45 feet in one complete piece! It was quite spectacular and we were tempted
just to stand it up but took the more sensible action of having it replaced in
record time by James Manion who is a wonder!
December
2021
The first half of December for us
wasn’t very exciting really. We had our
usual round of sittings and so on for Court; and some meeting – many of which
began happening in person. It was very
nice to begin to reengage with real people (rather than screen versions) again
and it made us realise that human contact really is important.
As the
month moved on, things started happening.
Lois got elected as Deputy Bench Chairman (sic) for County Durham and
Darlington Justices’ Bench – very much an honour. She also got elected as Chair designate of
Trustees for the Hospital of God at Greatham which is her charity. The two are not connected. 2022 is going to be busy for her, we
think! Ian got selected to join the
Bench JTAAAC (look it up!) and had a tooth out; the two are also not
connected. We went to Doncaster to visit
family and heard a rather excellent pun about those who refuse vaccinations …
“Vaccine refusal goes up with the density of the population.” Think about it! The visit was really nice and, again, it was
great to talk to real people in person – albeit masked-up … mostly. Ian spent most of his time outside the pub we
met in, while the others lunched, because they didn’t take dogs, but that was
OK.
We attended a lovely carol service at
Gainford (the place where Ian laid a Remembrance Wreath last month), again on
the village green. It’s been a while
since we’ve been able to attend one, and it was absolutely delightful. Being outside meant that we were all
Covid-safe and could sing our hearts out; which we did. Tara wasn’t sure what was going on and was
certainly very unsure about the church bells ringing out – she hasn’t heard the
like before! But once she opened herself
up to the “vibe and energy” of the event she had a great time. We have been invited to a Blessing of the
Animals in the summer, so Tara must have impressed them with her behaviour.
Ian from ISWORX came round to do the
flooring for our new enclosed porch – just the step to be built and then that’s
finished. Ian also made and fitted our
“memories board” for the porch, of which more later
when it starts to fill.
Towards the end of the month we set
off for Arran for Christmas. See the
travel blog about that … when we write it.
It was a really terrific stay and a much needed rest from our hard
retirement work (seriously!) We have at
last sussed out the ferry and how to get Tara on and off without trauma. She’s fine getting on and up the stairs to
the “pet lounge” … she is NOT ok getting back down the very steep, narrow, busy
and slippery stairs back to the car deck.
So this time Lo walked her off and Ian drove off, meeting up (as it
happens) in Ardrossan Asda which is only a short walk away. Tara genuinely loved this approach and it
made the whole experience MUCH better.
As I write this, we await the midnight
fireworks but have a plan to help Tara cope with those.
So, 2021 ... for Hannah, a shockingly
poor performance by Edinburgh Napier staff, fantastic support from Sunderland
staff for her PhD and PGCE, a successful course, a new permanent job and moving
into a new flat. For Ian & Lois, four separate holidays to the extremes of
the country, back to work part-time for Lo (temporarily), four significant
official appointments and a new successful business. Not bad.
Happy New Year to everyone and here’s
to 2022!!
November
2021
November’s weather was pretty good …
until the last week when Storm Arwen hit us!
100 MPH winds, snow … the lot.
Thankfully, we only had a small “outage” and very little damage – others
were not so lucky. Much of County Durham
and Northumberland were without power overnight and as I write (on 4th
December) many are still without power and some are without water because it’s
pumped by electricity. Awful for them
and has knocked everyone’s faith in moving towards electric ground-source heat
pumps to replace gas heating and electric cars for example. We have a generator, but it wouldn’t power a
GSHP!
We had out longest AirBnB guest – Toni
was here for the whole month working on his archaeology research with Durham
University. It was very successful for
him and us. We also had the next part of
the porch adaptation done – the outside door was fitted so we now have a
weather barrier, a noise barrier (next-doors have a very loud dog) and a place
for Amazon parcels to be left. Result …
and it looks great!
Ian laid a Remembrance Day wreath on
behalf of Her Majesty which was a lovely event at Gainford. It was held on the village green which was a
perfect venue – plenty of people turned up and the service was very moving
indeed. We’re intending to go back for
their carol service – also on the Green.
Also towards the end of the month,
Covid reinvented itself again and morphed into the Omicron variant. We’d just had out booster jabs, thankfully,
because the centres had to step up their rate shortly afterwards. We don’t really know whether it’s more or
less dangerous, nor whether the vaccine will be as
effective; but by having the booster we’ve done all we can to help those around
us, our loved ones and, maybe, ourselves.
We just wish everyone felt the same! Hey ho – there’s no accounting for
folks, as they say, especially those who are vaccine refusers. Ian made a reminder to himself not to have
the Covid booster on the day after his flu jab … he felt awful for a day!
October
2021
We concentrated on the AirBnB this
month, mostly. Interestingly, the
majority of our guests stayed with us for 2 or 3 nights and were supporting
their “children” as they became students of the university here. Been there, done that … it brought back some
memories for us!
https://airbnb.com/h/durham-brandon-flat
Ian attended (via YouTube) the RSGB
convention again this year and enjoyed himself hugely. He also moved forward with the recommendation
from the RSGB guys at the National Radio Centre (part of Bletchley Park) to
start listening to the airwaves to make a decision about whether to go for HF
or VHF in his rig. He got a super
receiver setup from eBay (a Yaesu FRG 7700 HF Receiver with Antenna Tuner and
VHF Converter) and the garden now has a 20m long-wire antenna stretched from
one side of the garden to the other! All good fun.
We both attended the Lieutenancy
Dinner too, meeting some interesting, entertaining and very nice people there
(and sometimes all three) and enjoying the guard of honour of cadets from all
three services.
Sunderland University suffered a
massive cyber attack which blacked them out completely,
even email was off for a couple of weeks.
Grim. It
meant that Ian’s PhD supervision of distance learning PhDs went across to Zoom
and WebEx from Teams … not all bad then!
The end of the month, of course, saw
Halloween and, of course, the idiots who start their indiscriminate,
antisocial, irresponsible and thoughtless use of fireworks early. Annoying for us but really upsetting for
Tara! This year, and in anticipation, we
started her on Skullcap and Valerian tablets early. This concoction sounds very much like
something out of Game of Thrones … but is a bit like valium for dogs. We’ll tell you more about our other “adjustments”
to help her through this gruesome period next month.
September
2021
Well, September whisked by
quickly! But we managed to squeeze a lot
in. We have four things to report this
month …
· we now have a
solar array on the roof. We learned that
it’s very wise to shop around in this market, though – for the same system we
had quotes from nearly £12,000 to under £5,000 (emphasising – for the same
system). It’s great to see (via an app,
of course) the electricity coming down and into our home. Of course, we have had to change a few
things, like washing clothes and dishes during the day when the sun is out to
make the best use of the available energy, rather than in the evening when it’s
dark and we have nothing being generated.
We will be feeding-in soon, too, but that requires paperwork like you
wouldn’t believe! We’ll let you know in
due course how our electricity bill fares;
·
the AirBnB took off in a way that we really hadn’t expected. No sooner had we launched the letting site,
we got bookings! September was pretty
much fully booked and as we write, October is filling fast and November is
full! We really hadn’t expected that,
but it’s great. We have hosted some
really nice people who leave the place as they found it, and one who wasn’t and
didn’t! Playing the percentages, though,
we’re happy with that. It was never
about the income and is more about the use of available resource – when Hannah
left there was a flat there, empty, begging for use … so we have used it. Interestingly, we’ve had all sorts of people
from those dropping their children off to become students at Durham, to people
on holiday and ones attending family events.
All great;
·
we went to Shetland again, for a week at a place near Bardister at the top
end of the mainland of Shetland. We had
a wonderful time and that will be detailed in the “Travels with a Greyhound”
blog in due course. There’s a bit that’s
worth reporting about “smokers vs dog wee” and the mutual affront … but we’ll
let you read that on the blog;
· Hannah stated work, teaching, and is having a terrific time … even after
the honeymoon period ended. She has also
restarted her PhD studies with Sunderland after the Edinburgh Napier debacle
and is REALLY enjoying proper supervision from committed supervisors – and good
administration too. What a contrast!
August
2021
Right, so August … As with July, we
have spent a good deal of our time on the refurb of the flat so that we could
launch it on AirBnB. We succeeded and
the listing can be found here - so please have a look at our hard
work! This month we’ve had two lots of
two guests, we’re booked for most of September and a bit of October and we’ve
even had a booking for the whole of November!
We’re really pleased, not just because of the work we put in but also
because people want to come and stay with us.
We’re really impressed with the platform too – we’re very new to all
this and the system guided us through everything. They helped with setting the prices which
change automatically according to the time of year, the day of the week, what’s
going on in the area and how popular we are; we can even set discounts for week
and month-long stays right through to how to do a proper Covid-safe clean. We even attended a live seminar with follow-up
advice – really helpful.
In addition to that, we got a few days
away, got a survey for getting a solar-power system installed (of which more
next month). Tara enjoyed some new
places to sniff out, Ian took a trip to Bletchley Park to see the code-breaking
place and he visited the National Radio Centre.
A smashing couple of days away which he thoroughly
enjoyed. See his Tripadvisor
reviews for both.
Hannah has finally closed down with
Edinburgh Napier University and is very pleased to break all ties with the
shit-show of a place. If you’re thinking
of studying for a PhD there then our advice, based on our experience, is DON’T
– you’ll get very poor supervision and even worse examination arrangements. Contact us if you’d like more details of the horror
show that is their Postgraduate setup.
She continues her PhD studies with Sunderland next month.
All in all
a very good month, although the weather was very poor.
July
2021
Well, we don’t have very much to say
about July – sorry! It has been all
about returning the guest suite that Hannah had been using into something fit
for AirBnB or similar. It’s a resource
too good to leave empty. So that’s meant
a full redecoration, reflooring, a rejig of the
kitchenette, sorting the bathroom out and so on. That seems simple to write, but it’s taken us
all the month to actually do it. We have
been able to recall tradesmen we trust, so Ian from Isworx did the floor for
us, Peter from JP Ceramics did the tiles and Nick will be doing the glosswork
(we did the walls, ceilings and radiators).
We also did the plumbing for the kitchenette. There’s been a huge amount to do, so we
haven’t really done much else except some sittings! We spent a lovely day at Beamish Museum,
though, including a very nice picnic and Ian attended a Baker-Dearing Trust
conference via Zoom, which was great.
That’s about it, really … except that we bought a new car – another X3
to replace the old one which was only a couple of years old but had got dirty
so we needed a new one!
June
2021
We concluded our Arran trip this month
(see the travel blog for details) and also went to Devon for another postponed
holiday. This one was booked in June
2019, postponed in June 2020 because of the restrictions on travel and then
finally we took it this June! That meant
that we had two week away in three … we never expected to be pressured by too
many holidays too close together … and other unanticipated result of
Covid. It was a lovely week
investigating Mike’s stone circle and how it would indicate the solstice which
in the event was not seen because of rain and low cloud. (We have booked again for 2022.) More AirBnB – this time in a wonderful little
cottage in the middle of Beer right next to the church and two minutes from the
mainstreet … (pause for effect) … down a very, very steep hill. Going down to the village was easy – getting
back up was much more of a challenge and we found a different route. More in the travel blog. Hannah moved out an into her new flat which
isn’t very far away from here and we set about converting her old flat here
into a guest suite … we might dip our toes into the AirBnB hosting lark
ourselves. Tara had a wonderful time on
Arran and then again in Beer. She found
the sea “interesting” in both places.
She very nearly managed to catch a seagull in mid flight when one came
too close for our comfort and, in the event, its safety. We don’t think she’d have known what to do
about it if she’d caught it , but it was a close run
thing for the seagull and I suspect Tara would have won.
May
2021
The main thing that happened during
the month was that we visited the caravan, perhaps for the last time, to empty
it. We have decided, after nearly 7
lovely years, to vacate it and hand it over to the people who have taken over the
croft to use as a holiday rental. It’s a
long trek up there and although it’s still lovely, the place has changed a lot
since we first moved there. The North
Coast 500 route passes close, so the number of tourists has gone up
markedly. The roads just aren’t up to
coping with huge motor caravans, many of which are rented by people who
normally drive small saloon cars … it can get chaotic. It’s also a great deal noisier than it used
to be, with the people in the two crofts opposite now farming them big time,
often working late into the evening (it gets dark very late up there). So, all things considered, we are moving on
and finding somewhere rather closer to home.
More of that later.
Lo went up to visit her cousin in East
Kilbride, spending a lovely day there discussing some records of one of their
ancestors she’s found.
We spent a gorgeous week on Arran,
postponed from Christmas and then again from Easter because of the
pandemic. We were hosted by two
absolutely lovely people, both significant artists. He’s a sculptor – stone mostly – and she’s a
painter. Their work was all around. We had the run of the grounds which were
extensive with three big fields and whole woodland to explore – Tara was in
heaven with the smells available to her and had a wonderful time, as did
we. We found the place where, 37 years
ago, we camped on our honeymoon. The
field is still there looking much the same although holiday homes are now built
opposite. Getting to Arran was a bit
tricky because Calmac (the ferry operator up there) had moved one of their
ferries to replace a service from Ullapool to Lewis so only one was left doing
the Ardrossan-Brodick route … one is not enough and we were cancelled. So we had to travel the route up past Loch
Lomond round the tip of Loch Fyne then down the western side of the Firth of
Clyde to Claonaig where there’s a little “turn up and go” ferry to Lochranza on
the other side of Arran. It should have
been a couple of hours extra, but we chose to travel on the first Saturday of
half term, and it was a nice day, so the whole of Scotland appeared to be on
the road to Loch Lomond. Scotland’s
roads are not built for tourist traffic (even though a significant proportion
of the country’s income is from tourism) so we got stuck in an hour and a half
of traffic jam. The ferry was great,
though – once we got there. Coming back
was a lot easier since our Brodick-Ardrossan booking was honoured. The experience was terrific and there’s even
good facilities for dogs in a special area of the inside saloon. Tara really didn’t like the stairs - too
steep and slippery metal – or the water rushing passed, but loved the smells
coming from the carpet in the saloon … we didn’t enquire!
April
2021
Well, what a month that was! Many significant things happened, alongside
the tedium of the continued lockdown. We
had some work done around the house, including having the tourer’s floor
replaced with new wooden laminate. We
were invited to lunch in a marquee – the only way we would be allowed to be
included in such gatherings would be outdoors.
The weather has been bright but cold (the coldest April on record, we
were told) so thank goodness for the diesel heater! It was a terrific lunch and it was great to
share company with other people.
Sittings returned (mostly) to three Magistrates, by dint of perspex
screens being erected throughout. Very
odd, quite sweaty and tests one’s voice to be heard in Court!
Scotland lifted its travel ban from
England and around the country towards the end of the month … we didn’t join
the cavalcade of camper vans going north … but will soon.
But those things pale into
insignificance alongside the huge news that Hannah gained a teaching post for
September. She’s having a fantastic time
on her PGCE course, now at the UTC, and now has a job to look forward to. She also had a major win against Napier
University, whose support for her PhD has been a travesty. She’ll be moving to Sunderland to continue
her studies! Ian got made a Deputy
Lieutenant for County Durham (a deputy lieutenant is a deputy of a
lord-lieutenant of a county, in the case of County Durham, Her Majesty’s
Lord-Lieutenant is Mrs Sue Snowdon. The
appointment is subject to the sovereign’s approval) which is a huge honour. A little about the position is here.
As we move forward into May we hear
better and better news from this country anyway about the success of the
lockdown and the vaccination programme, so hopefully we will have more trips to
tell you about next time.
March
2021
March continued much as February had
been – wild swings of weather (sometimes within a day) from beautiful sunshine
to perishing cold. But spring is always
a nice time of year, with the evenings getting longer. Then we have the horrible time when
government decides that we should all have jetlag while it forces an hour
change for no obvious reason. We found
that the EU had decided not to have “daylight saving”
this year but that action was postponed because of the coronavirus
pandemic. We’ve never been sure how
tinkering with the time is supposed to cause an astronomical change big enough
to save daylight and now we’re not sure why the coronavirus pandemic means that
a change to the law that’s been passed doesn’t go ahead … maybe that’s why
we’re not politicians!
Anyway, Ian’s now had his first
Oxford-Astrazenica jab and has undergone a full-day battery of hands-on tests
including EEG while doing tasks, ECG, gait (including a week-long recording),
MRI while doing tasks (which was horrible) and so on; all as part of the Newcastle
Parkinson’s study we told you about last month.
He finished his stint chairing the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee
for Justices of the Peace at the end of the month, and there’ll be news
following that later. Lois spends most
of her time on-line (it seems) with all her voluntary work taking place via
Zoom or Teams. Tara had to go to the vet
because she got sick and was given an opioid injection that sent her, frankly,
doolally! Bless her! It would have been
funny had it not been worrying. She’s
fine now, though. Hannah continues on
her PGCE, ending her placement at Park View School and moving after Easter to
the UTC … she cannot wait. She’s on the
interview treadmill at the moment.
So, in summary, it’s been an uplifting
month … the step towards spring always is, isn’t it. We are moving slowly towards a lifting of
lockdown which is nice and we’ve even had an invitation to a lunch in a marquee
early next month which will be our first outing and to which we are really
looking forward! Could this be the start
of the end of this period of our lives that we’ll certainly look back on into
the future? Or are we being
optimistic? Tell you what, let’s all be
optimistic, shall we – it’s good for us!
February
2021
After January’s “hibernation” as we called
it, February bloomed … well, it didn’t exactly bloom, but it was bright. The
“annoying snow” that was noted at the end of January turned into dangerous and
long-lived snow … which then turned into sheet ice as the council failed to do
anything about clearing it except for bus routes, making even walking about
difficult and driving was almost impossible. That went on for a couple of weeks
with the temperature never getting above freezing and regularly dipping to
-5°C. On one or two occasions it got to -9.5°C, with a cheery council man on
the radio saying that the salt they use on the main roads stops working at
-10°C. Helpful. But then everything changed
weather-wise. Within 48 hours it warmed up to +10°C ... almost 20 degrees up
from a couple of days previously! Spring sprung, as it were! It was lovely - we
could do our exercise walks without coats and the whole world took on a better
outlook.
We struggled on with lockdown as best we could with our court sittings. Hannah
got into school by means of 4x4 during the snow - it was the only way out of
the minor roads! Zoom, Teams and a bit of WebEx as ever came to the fore with
remote governors’ meetings, remote courts, remote committee meetings, remote
briefings and, on one occasion, a remote lecture about Poolewe being live
streamed from Gairloch. That last one was an absolute joy and is the one
brilliant thing about lockdown … we could never get to a lecture in Gairloch
(which is on the far North West coast of Scotland) but we could get there
virtually. The museum is worth a look (www.gairlochmuseum.org) and we think you
can find the lecture series from there. A great initiative worth supporting!
Hannah found that there was more work to do on her PhD and Ian started the ball
rolling with a piece of medical research he’s volunteered for with Newcastle
University (he’s one of the healthy control group for a Parkinson’s project)
and was subjected to a full morning battery of tests to make sure he was free
of Parkinson’s.
The huge news is that Lois has now had her first Covid vaccination, and Ian has
booked his for early next month (Lois is in group 5 and Ian is in Group 7).
We’ve had the news that schools are back on 8th March and there’s an outline
plan (called the Roadmap) of getting out of lockdown. Politicians are being
much more cautious this time since a fourth lockdown would lose votes!
A much more positive month, notwithstanding the snow!
January
2021
We mentioned at the end of last month
that COVID was raging … and that continued into January. There was a quick, but
not completely unexpected, full lockdown including school closure right across
the country. It was probably too late and as the month went on, so the
situation became worse. The figures went well above the previous highs. But the
upside was that the vaccinations started in earnest and by the end of the month
pretty much all of the care home people were covered. For us, life went on
pretty much as before.
These lockdowns don’t really affect us much, if we’re honest. Interestingly,
road traffic continued much as before (unlike the March 2020 lockdown) so we’re
not really sure whether people are really responding to it! The courts stayed
open so we continued to sit and our birthdays were celebrated with a fantastic
dial-up Lebaneat meal … the same food as it would have been, but at a bijou
restaurant (i.e. our dining room) and the huge upside was that we were all
together. This was the first birthday celebration with all three of us present
for years. A glimmer of a silver lining, perhaps.
That’s pretty much it for January! We had some annoying snow that just got in
everyone’s way, but there’s little else to report. Hibernation, I think one
calls it. Roll on the excitement of February!
December 2020
December was great! Odd but great. It was like being in a state of flux for the
whole month because one never knew from day to day what would happen next.
Brexit vied with Covid for the headlines in the news which was refreshing
(-ish) and we didn't know until the week before what we'd be allowed to do for
Christmas. The government pulled a blinder by warning that London would go into
lockdown a few days before it did (because of a new, more contagious, strain)
so everyone left and spread it round this country and beyond. Towards the end of
the month, the inevitable deal was whisked from the bag at the very last minute
(as EU-related decisions always are) and the French closed their borders. Oh,
and Bill Bailey won Strictly.
In the end, we were
allowed to mix on Christmas Day only - so we did - and the rest of the time we
stayed in Tier 3. All fairly predictable really but it concentrated the mind
and we had a fabulous time! Two culinary highlights were a wonderful goose
dinner on Christmas Eve prepared (mostly) by Hannah and a fantastic piece of
beef from Campbell's for Christmas Dinner itself. We also had, magically, the
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter which we could see on clear mornings and is
said to be what was prophesied in the Book of Numbers ("A Star shall come
out of Jacob") and is reported in Matthew's gospel ("For we have seen
His star in the East and have come to worship Him.") See photo above.
Perhaps best of all was that we had a white Christmas - it was officially
declared so by the Met Office and was confirmed by looking out of the window.
Just before New Year we
were put into Tier 4: the one above the highest tier. This was LockDown by
another name, really, as was meant to stop people congregating for New Year
celebrations. So we stayed in (as we usually do, really) but we had the bonus
of all being together to see 2021 in. There has to be a silver lining or two in
all this, and that was certainly one! Tara didn't like the fireworks during the
evening, but they didn't go on too long and we enjoyed Jools' Hootenanny as usual. It all goes to show that while making forward plans in
nigh-on impossible at the moment, much doesn't really change. At 11:00
(midnight European time) Big Ben sounded for the first time in years. The hands
showed 10:59, but they made the bell toll at 11:00. Not the chimes beforehand,
just the tolling bell marking the end of our stay in the EU.
The rest of December was
pretty much the same as the rest of the year with lots of on-line meetings and
sittings. Tara has some smashing times at Paws Play ... although the field
became progressively more waterlogged as the month went on and the rain fell.
For Ian, the highlight of
the month was him passing (with 87%) his Intermediate Radio Amateur examination
and getting his new callsign.
As we leave 2020, the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is in use and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has just
been approved, COVID-19 rages and is currently outstripping its height last
summer and we are properly out of the EU. At this time last year we hadn't even
heard of COVID. What will happen this year? Whatever, may we wish all of you
who read these notes a very, very happy, safe, well and (perhaps) prosperous
2021!
November 2020
Looking back on November
is a little tricky … not much happened.
We were put into “Tier 3”, the highest tier of Covid-19 control, not
because of the infection rates in Durham but because Newcastle and its
surrounding boroughs were high and to London we’re all the same. Then from November 5th we were put into a
form of Lockdown, but schools and most shops stayed open and everyone kept
going to work. The only thing that
changed was that restaurants and pubs closed.
During the day and early evening everything was normal – traffic levels
were high and the only way of telling anything had changed was that more people
wore masks. Evenings were quieter, but
only a bit. After that we went back into
Tier 3 which meant that schools and shops stayed open and everyone kept going to
work. It was hard to tell. However, the Government announced that we’d
be allowed to mingle over Christmas, although that was largely because people
would have done it anyway so we got the worst form of regulation where rules
follow practice! It’ll inevitably cause
a surge in infection in the New Year, but there you go. At least it looks like there might be a
vaccine.
All the while the courts
stayed open (albeit with controls and variation), we continued remote
interviewing and most meetings were on Zoom, Teams or WebEx. Not much changed! Hannah’s schools stayed largely Covid-free so
her teaching practice wasn’t disturbed much.
Tara was upset by the
five days of Guy Fawkes night! Not surprising – we
were too! Bangs, whistles and flashes started on 4th
(the evening before lockdown) and went on until 8th. The amount of money that people spent must
have been significant. We think it’s
about time the Government stopped the sale of explosives to the general
public. It wasn’t a nice period – a
panic stricken dog is not very nice for anyone.
However we found the wonders of valerian and skullcap tablets (which sounds like something from Game of Thrones) and now refer to
them as “Tara’s Valium”. They helped
enormously although a spaced out hound can be fun to watch!
We made use of the
PawsPlay facility a few times, which Tara loves. However, she rarely manages the full 50
minutes without getting flaked out so we will start to take a picnic with us
next month – it’s a nice spot for a picnic and there are never any other dogs
around!
October 2020
October saw a return to
something like normality. Everyone
pretty much got on with their lives (although that was set to bite us
later). Judicial sittings were
normal-ish (with only two on the bench), and meetings settled into the new
normal of Zoom/Teams/Skype/whatever.
We’ve realised that something is missing from these, so although they
are cheaper (no expenses) and quicker (no travel), they miss that important
chatter before and after, where a lot of important work was done. That work now isn’t being done and a kind of
malaise is creeping in to things. That
may well get worse before it gets better.
Ian “attended” an RSGB
conference via Zoom, which was excellent, worked brilliantly and which he
thoroughly enjoyed and he also “attended" a talk streamed from the
Gairloch Museum which was great, too. He
would not have been able to attend these in person, so were a huge bonus
offered by the pandemic response.
We’re also noticing that
the communication of efficient and effective companies is doing better than
before – they have instigated technological solutions really well so that staff
can work from home properly, having phone calls diverted to them, being able to
access their office systems and using the last six months to employ more staff
to cover the shortfall due to illness. Less
efficient companies are still talking about the effect that the “coronavirus
pandemic”(a phrase they use as a kind of trump card)
is having on them as an excuse for poor communication and awful customer
service. We assume that as we go on,
these less efficient companies are the ones that will fall by the wayside.
We squeezed in a trip to
the caravan in the highlands, which we’d like to say was lovely but it was
plagued with heavy rain and strong winds! Tara had a great time, though, and is
now not so fazed by such weather! A high point this month was finding a
fantastic secure dog-exercise field where we can let her off the lead and she
can run free. Lovely!
September 2020
September was an
interesting and busy month for us all … it came as a bit of a shock after the
last few months of comparative leisure.
Lois went to Denmark to
follow up on her research project into her forebears. Denmark was on the list of places that didn’t
require quarantine after a visit, which was great … and controls for Scotland
and the North-East hadn’t been put in.
It was a short window of opportunity which opened just right for
her. She had a great time and more
details are included in the travel blog you can access from the “Adventures”
link in the menu.
Hannah started her
teacher training course. She’d already
visited the school but this was the start of her course itself. Lots of administration to
start with, of course, and then down to real work. She is having a whale of a time and
thoroughly enjoying things so far.
We got up to the caravan
for a lovely week, mid-September.
Although it did rain a lot! (Maybe the location suggests we should
expect that.) We hadn’t been for a long time for various reasons, so it was
great to get back up there. We had
bought Tara a grand new cage to sleep in – somewhere larger – and she found
that very good.
Lots of Court sittings,
of course, and remote work too … we’re all getting used to this way of working
which we find very satisfactory. But on
top of all that, Ian got into school as a Governor, being very careful but
seeing the way in which education can flourish in a COVID-safe
environment. It was super to see the
students being responsible and following the rules properly – for them it’s
just the way to do things, so they do!
August 2020
August saw a return to
something close to normality. Traffic
was pretty much back to normal and apart from wearing masks in them, shops were back to normal too. Tesco deliveries were easily available and
there was little or no queuing outside.
In terms of our activities, that was pretty much back to normal too,
with judicial sittings returning to normal (but only two on the bench, not
three, and more work being done over video systems) and Lois taking part in
some medical research too.
Following the submission
of her PhD thesis, Hannah had a lovely week in Edinburgh in the caravan; we had
managed to get a booking during what would have been Festival time between
everyone cancelling their bookings but before they rebooked! The site ended up
full to capacity, but there was a two-day window when bookings were easy … and
we caught it. We took her there, dropped
the caravan off and then left her there … with the reverse at the end of the
week. All worked well and apart from a
couple of days of rain it worked brilliantly.
Edinburgh was odd without the throngs of people who would normally be
there for the Festivals and the Fringe … but maybe that’s not such a bad thing
since it was getting a bit silly in terms of overcrowding and
overcharging. We also got dental
appointments!
The high point, apart of
course from the PhD submission, was that Ian became the first chair in the
country of a panel recommending a new magistrate after a remote interview. Exciting, and the rest of the country will
now learn from our experience.
Tara has had a great
month, developing her own ways and enjoying the opportunities to see a bit more
of people around the place. She is still
a bit nervous around new people (I think we’ve all found it a bit odd,
actually) but that is disappearing.
July 2020
Lockdown was relaxed as
the month began. Actually, in practice,
it relaxed rather more than was intended … it looked like everyone pretty much
got back to normal. In England anyway –
Scotland was a bit more careful and things reopened rather more slowly there
and as a result, people took things a bit more seriously. Here, people just got back to their business,
congregating in huge numbers as the seaside and following football matches
where they also managed to deposit a huge amount of litter; I suppose if
someone disregards a social distancing rules, they will also disregard
littering rules. Traffic noise pretty
much got back to normal. And Ian and
Hannah had visits to the hairdressers!!!
Ian had a terrific “big
Zoom session” as an old school reunion, which was great fun. Hannah also visited the school where she’ll
be undertaking the majority of her teacher training course next year and came
back full of excitement and wanting to get on with it NOW!!
Travel, as we said, was
getting back to normal and so we were able to go across to Runcorn for a
funeral of one of Lois’ distant cousins and we were able to have a lovely
post-interment lunchtime meeting with a large number of her family. It was very nice to congregate in groups
again – although we both found it a little overwhelming to start with. Then we got to revisit the caravan – Scotland
lifted its ban on tourist travel. Mind
you, most of the motorhomes in England also came up the A9! It was nice to get
back up there for a while, although the weather was awful and so were the
midges. Having said that, we managed a
couple of nice walks that included the beach which was quite crowded … 5 or 6
people were there (see photo above). Tara got introduced to the sea by doing a bit
of paddling but wasn’t really impressed.
She was very intrigued by the sea and its sparkly bits, though! Once we
got home, it was all hands to the pumps to prepare the tourer for Hannah’s
forthcoming trip to Edinburgh … but more of that later.
We spent a lovely
afternoon attending a "socially distanced social event" at HoG near
Hartlepool. It was a get-together
organised by Lois for the Trustees in the hospital grounds. It was the first time we had attended any
sort of big get-together for many months and felt a bit odd; very pleasant,
just odd! We had to keep well away from the buildings of course and over 2
metres from each other, so there was quite a lot of shouting. . and there wasn't any drink (or toilets) but apart from that
it was great. It was actually a highly
successful and enjoyable event!
Thanks for the nice
comments about the "family roo” video.
June 2020
As we entered our fourth
month of lockdown, June was an interesting month of contrasts. We had to cancel a lot, but also did some
extras that we wouldn’t have done otherwise.
The cancellations included our long planned for trip to Devon to try out
Mike Green’s stone-circle solstice calculator – a stone circle in a field in
Devon. We mentioned it in the travel
blog at the time. We booked a cottage a
year ago. . cancelled it as a
result of COVID-19. . and rebooked for
next year. More positively, we held a
fantastic Tarot exchange over Zoom, including a breakout “room” for the
readings themselves. We’re getting good
at this videolink stuff! The Sunderland Faculty of Education and Society
wouldn’t let viruses get in the way of their research conference and continued
it – very successfully – over MS Teams.
And court sittings kind of resumed, although they were different and
sometimes over Skype for Business. The
weather was lovely at the start of the month and we got some great barbecues
in. .
although it then turned to winter weather! We
had an anti-Christmas dinner (“anti” in the sense of opposite rather than
against) on 25th June, including a Christmas tree, beef from Campbell’s with
all the trimmings and we were even allowed a guest! Even more positively, Ian
took an on-line course in amateur radio (something he’s wanted to do since he
was 14), took the examination on video and passed so he’s now a licensed radio
amateur (callsign M7IGN). He is dead
chuffed and is now learning Morse code!
Last month we included
the throwaway remark ‘We even have a "family roo" on most days.’ and
as a result we’ve been asked “What on earth is a family roo, when it’s at
home?” Well, rooing is a bit like a howl that some greyhounds use to let
everyone know they’re there. The pose is
a full-on “howling-at-the-moon-nose-in-the-air-and-neck-fully-extended”
look. And the sound is lovely. With Tara, the tail is wagging like mad. She (and we) love
doing it together, hence the family roo remark, and we can start it off by one
of us rooing ourselves so that everyone joins in. It’s a remarkable noise. . goodness know what it sounds like outside, mind you!
May 2020
May was. . well, May really. The
weather crashed from arctic to sweltering and then back again. We took advantage of the warmer bits by
having several barbecues which got us out of the house. . albeit only onto the deck!
We got on with our third
month of lockdown, although there were some minor adjustments. We all got used to a wide variety of
videoconferencing platforms. Our
preference remains with Zoom - it being, in our experience, the best functionally,
the most reliable and easiest to use - but we've also had to cope with MSTeams,
Skype, Skype for Business and Webex, all of which are different in their setup
and operation, all behave differently and all have their idiosyncrasies. We’ve learned that running two video sessions
simultaneously across our broadband is only JUST possible and not while a
Netflix stream is also going on.
However, we’ve also found how to share a connection on one PC between
broadband and mobile data which solves the problem. It went through bizarre fun to just “what we
do”.
Hannah had a super
birthday given the circumstances, having a couple of Zoom sessions with various
groups as well as a pizza meal including Ben who joined us virtually. We think she deserves a proper party some
time. .
when we can! Tara perfected her stair work and
can now run up and down with some panache whenever she wants to! She has got
into the habit of wandering up to the landing when she wants a bit quiet time
or to check out what’s happening next door or across the road, taking advantage
of a high vantage point and floor-length windows! No fools, these
greyhounds. She really is part of the
family now – or is it that we are part of her pack – and is becoming a champion
member either way. We even have a
"family roo" on most days.
We took advantage of the
variations in rules by going for a picnic during the warmer part of the month,
which was just lovely! And Hannah had a properly socially distanced meeting
with Ben.
April 2020
April. . well, what a month that was! We all learned a new way of
living. For archive purposes: we all had
to stay in our homes except for specific designated activities (shopping,
exercise, medical, key working). For us,
we got into a routine pretty quickly – Hannah did Tara’s morning walk as
exercise for both of them followed by a bit of yoga or a workout for Hannah
before breakfast. We had a quiz session
after our family breakfast to get the brains going. Lois and Ian did either a long walk early
afternoon or later in the evening with Tara, depending on the weather, and we
went shopping when we had to. The
evenings, we have to admit, have been taken up utilising our Netflix and Amazon
Prime subscriptions, BBC iPlayer and so on.
Any platform where we can avoid interminable adverts, really!
Shopping was interesting
– while we are not vulnerable, we fall into the “at risk” category so are
trying not to go to places where other people are. . as we’ve been advised – the government has asked us to use
home deliveries whenever we could.
However, Tesco were completely overwhelmed and their home deliveries and
click and collect were simply unavailable a month ahead. This appeared to be so right across the
country. They didn’t give any
information or any help. . availability simply
stopped. Morrison’s and Iceland kept
going pretty well with a much better web portal than Tesco, as did Sainsbury’s
- and Lidl were fantastic. Our concern
has been that if we had to isolate for a fortnight, we couldn’t have eaten! But
Morrison’s and Lidl, between them, came up with the goods – literately. Loo rolls became available as the month went
on as did pasta, both of which were simply unavailable for the first half of
the month.
What are the up-sides of
our month, then? We had planned to go up to the Highlands for Easter, but that
wasn’t within the rules so we didn’t; so we had a lovely Easter at home. . the supermarkets near to home having a surfeit of chocolate
eggs! We also had a couple of barbecues when it was warm (Lidl did well for
those) but apart from those days we were in an arctic airstream (literally) and
it was cold. Above all, though, it was
quiet – it still is. Lovely and quiet!
It’s quieter than our Highland retreat now! Very few cars go by and going for
walks has been lovely; indeed we have found some beautiful places to walk close
to home (see above right). Brandon Woods, for example.
. we
didn’t even know that they existed before and they offer some fantastic walks
in near solitude! There are also lots of open spaces – grassed, lit and
maintained by the Council. . wonderful. The air itself is fresher and cleaner that
we’ve ever known. . and the clarity of
views is fantastic too. It just shows
the crap that we pump into the air normally.
Oh, and Tara has learned
to go up and down stairs. She sounds a
bit like a drunkard coming down, but greyhounds are hardly built for stairs!
Perhaps the most
uplifting of all the activity going on at this peculiar time is the “clap for
our carers” on Thursday evenings at 8:00.
We took part in them – from a high platform on the deck in the garden so
that we could see over the hedge. At
first we felt a little guilty at our surprise of the enthusiasm of the people
of Brandon, but then felt quite emotional at the solidarity of the support for
those who are in the “front line”. We
haven’t used pots and pans to make more noise yet (as some do) – we’ll keep
that for next month.
Towards the middle of the
month came the news that the lockdown would continue for another three weeks at
least – no surprise there. Settle
in.
March 2020
WOW! Well, how things
have changed since last month. And it's
all happened since the latter half of March.
For those reading this as an archive - Covid-19 hit
the UK hard and serious controls had to be put into place. Around the middle of the month, the
government gave strong advice to everyone to stay indoors and not
congregate. That was just before a nice
weekend when everyone went to Snowdon and Ben Nevis, thus congregating. People went to pubs, some restaurants stayed
open. It was exactly what one might have
come to expect, really. On top of all
that, lots of people with camper vans tried to go to Scotland to isolate and
one story had it that 30 such vans turned up at the Ben Nevis visitor centre
car park (where there are no facilities) demanding to stay there; police were
called and it was all a bit messy. So
the government had to get heavy, putting out a direction, rather than advice,
that we all had to stay indoors apart from very specific listed reasons. Schools closed,
clubs, pubs and restaurants closed, and so on.
This was all backed up by law which was hurried in.
For us, we settled in to
a routine which included outings for only getting groceries and exercise (which
included Tara of course). The huge news
was that we managed to get some toilet roll on Friday 27th March! The first available for weeks. We still don't know why everyone panic bought toilet roll - Covid-19 causes neither diarrhoea
nor sneezing - but the nation ran out.
We're a funny bunch aren't we! The joke of each morning saying in a
Geordie accent "Day 4 of lockdown in the house" quickly became
stale. Two interesting things struck
us. First, just how
quiet it is without traffic.
Round here rivals the Highlands for quietness now. The loudest thing is the birdsong! Some would
regard it as spooky or even scary - we think it's the silver lining of all
this. The other is the lack of sociability. We understand the social distance requirement
but we hadn't expected people that we see on out daily exercise walk to avoid
eye contact or any greeting! That's a bit odd and maybe will settle down as we
all get used to this strange way of living.
But, in common with just
about every other monthly update since we began them, this month we had some
work done (and like just about every previous report, it was the last bit of
work to be done). This was to streamline
the garage storage. Ian of ISWORX got it
done just before the lockdown and it looks fabulous!
January/February 2020
After the rigours of Christmas and New Year (which in fact were not all
that rigorous at all), January and February have been much quieter. The high point was a trip to the
Highlands, a Travelodge stay. Full details about that on the Travel Blog in “Adventures”. Apart from that, it’s been very quiet
indeed. . apart from us having
incorporating our open stairs closed in.
Ian from ISWORX did a great job as always. We had our birthdays too, which was
nice. February was even quieter. . looking back I think we kind of hibernated! One point of
mention is that Hannah found that her role with Orangebus/Capita was not as
billed; it was market research rather than product research! Not even close to
her desired career pathway, so they parted company (amicably). She's now decided to follow mum and dad's
footsteps and go into teaching and in the meantime is concentrating full time
on her PhD writeup; as a result it's going very well indeed now. She has also started working p/t as an intern
at the UTC which is really great experience for her and is retaining her role
as a STEM ambassador at the UTC in Newcastle.
All very good indeed and she is looking forward hugely to getting under
way with her new career direction.
December 2019
Looking back on December
to summarise it for you is quite tough … because not very much happened,
really! A glance through our diaries shows that Lois and Ian spent nearly every
day doing some sort of voluntary work … Hospital Trustees, Research Groups,
Patient Groups, Judicial work, Advisory Committee stuff and so on. It was, depending on how you look at it,
either a mad week or one that showed a marked lack of diary control! Hannah
continued with her job – which has now graduated away from “new job” to just “job”
as she settles in to professional life and the joys of commuting and, towards
the end of the month, a Tyne & Wear Metro strike which was carefully timed
to hit end-of-year festivities as well as a key NUFC football match. Season’s Greetings to the RMT!
More positively, Tara
gained Kennel Club recognition as Flomur Tara, her “posh Sunday name” after a
protracted email discussion between Ian and the KC followed by a really, really
helpful telephone call with Lesley from the Club who painstakingly and with
enormous patience talked Ian through a whole new world of terminology including
“sires” and “dams” which previously he had thought were about mediaeval kings
and irrigation control, and “stud book” which is a phrase not well served by
Google searches! It’s a long time since Ian was fazed by terminology and he
found it refreshing … or maybe another word.
Also, the Christmas food started to arrive … by van from Tesco, another
van from Iceland and a courier also in a van from Campbell’s Meat in
Linlithgow. Might’ve overdone it a bit …
indeed we had to nip out and buy another freezer to accommodate everything.
We also went to see “A
Jazzy Christmas” at the Sage which careful readers will remember we saw last
year. We’d booked the tickets in the “BT
era” (i.e. Before Tara) and were now a bit stuck because she’s not yet
confident enough in us to be left for several hours … not without us (although
probably not her) “worriting”. However,
Hannah and Ben volunteered to look after her while we gallivanted. And we had a fabulous time. And then there was the Strictly
final …
Christmas itself was
wonderful – mostly food orientated of course – but terrific. We all had a brilliant time and Ian got a pie
in a tin for Christmas. Nuff said!
November 2019
November was a nice,
quiet month (for a change!) We have been enjoying getting to know Tara and she
us. We have established a reasonable
routine, now, which makes for an easier life for us all. Hounds like routine, we find, and Tara is no
different. She goes to bed and sleeps
through without hassle and, like us, doesn’t really like getting up in the
morning especially when it’s cold … and certainly not when it’s raining. She enjoys her walks on a set route for
morning, afternoon and evening “pee and poo” sessions. She also loves going for rides in the car and
we have had a couple of lovely visits to the Greyhound Trust people one of
which was their Christmas Fayre at Hardwick Park. We have also had a super session at home with
Vicky from Have a Good Dog (www.haveagooddog.co.uk) who started us on basic
training (in fairness, it really was us rather than Tara who needed
training). Vicky really was great and we
got a proper set of notes, handouts and references as part of the fee, as well
as a very enjoyable session. Thoroughly recommended.
There is now a link in
the menu on the left for Tara’s background data including her pedigree and race
results before she retired. And some
photos too.
Apart from that, the
month has seen a lot of interviewing for new JPs – Durham & Cleveland are
right in the middle of a recruitment campaign at the moment and we’ve also had
a couple of excellent events at the University.
And Ian had a very enjoyable “black tie” dinner at the UTC to launch
their new STEM initiative.
So all in all a very pleasant month with enough interesting things but a
lot of enjoyable stuff going on too.
Oh, and the Christmas
trees are up … in November! I know!!
October 2019
Well, what a month
October has been! We had the last bits of the new kitchen fitted and the
decorating more or less done. In amongst
that, Lois had a few days on holiday in London, visiting her family and
catching up on some of the genealogy stuff she’s been working on. We got the rubbish removed from the old
kitchen (a truck full) and the old but still good fridge and freezer as well as
a whole lot of other superfluous stuff went to the BHF charity shop. Later in the month, Ian did a quick run up to
the North West Highlands! Alongside all that we attended an excellent
Lieutenancy dinner and got on with our usual Judicial
business; so all in all a very packed month!
But we know you don’t
want to hear about any of that! You want to hear about Tara don’t you! It’s a
while since we had someone in the household that needed lots of care and
attention - 25 years, in fact! Rescuing a greyhound is remarkably similar to
having a baby! September saw Tara settle in, understand what a house is, what
stairs were and what a hoover is like.
October has been much more about getting her into routines to that she
feels comfortable as a new member of the family. What they say about a couple of hours’ snooze
for each half-hour walk is about right and we have found some lovely routes
round about that keep us clear of the main roads. We have been pleasantly surprised by the
amount of green space there is around here – loads of it. All of which makes for a wonderful smellscape
to be created for a hound. We daren’t
let her off her lead, though. . she finds rabbits
very attractive and will go for magpies like a shot; well, she did race at
Sunderland after all (that’s a local joke).
But other dogs rattle her. . unless they are
other greyhounds. We attended the
monthly Sunday walk organised by the Darlington Greyhound Trust where she
linked up with some of her old friends and we made some new ones!
September 2019
September was dominated
by the arrival of Tara. But that wasn't
the only thing that happened, so before we tell you about Tara, here are the
other highlights.
We spent a wonderful week
in Shetland. We've done Orkney before,
so wanted to go a little further afield and do the northernmost extremity of
the UK. Details are in the travel blog,
of course, which you can access from the Adventures link in the menu on the
left or by clicking here.
On our return, we
prepared for a lunch to which we invited some friends. It turned into quite a big "do"
with about 20 people coming. We'd
originally envisaged it being a barbecue but the weather was a little unkind to
us - maybe not a surprise for mid-September, but annoying nevertheless. Instead we did a roast dinner (beef, lamb,
pork, chicken, salmon and a veggie option too).
It seemed to go down well and we had a very relaxed afternoon eating,
drinking and chatting; it was very pleasant.
In parallel, we had emptied the kitchen because, yes although we'd said
we had finished the renovations for now, we got an excellent deal on a new
kitchen so went for it. Not great
timing, but. !
Alongside all that was
the arrival of Tara who we adopted on 12th September. Tara is a four year old ex-racing greyhound,
rescued by the Greyhound Trust at Darlington.
Tara’s first race was on 21st July 2017 in Kilkenny, Ireland and she
raced 5 times before coming to the UK.
Since she was trained in Ireland she has an identification tattoo is
both ears. She raced at Sunderland 48
times from 8th September 2017 to her final race on 30th June 2019, winning six
times. Unfortunately (or maybe
fortunately for her) she wasn’t all that good at keeping to her lane as she
raced and there are numerous notes in her record about bumping which means that
she bumped into the dog running beside her or crowded them – she didn’t baulk
them, which would have meant that she interfered with them, she just wandered a
bit. She also has notes about being slow
away and running on. In other words, she
wasn’t a very good racing greyhound which presumably is why she went for
adoption at quite a young age.
She's still settling in
to life here - we've had a few sleepless nights and some "accidents"
too, but things are improving by the day as she learns to trust us and enjoy
her new life with us.
August 2019
August has been a month
of getting on with life, really. There
have only been a couple of excitements! We have both been settling in to our
volunteering, catching up somewhat on things that have drifted by. For once we didn't do much in the way of
holiday. . we didn't need to
because we can go any time (did I mention we're retired). And anyway, Scotland is currently sinking
under the sheer number of camper vans on its roads - best to stay away unless
you have a camper van of your own. We
nipped up to Edinburgh to collect Hannah from university - for probably the
last time. We've done this for seven
years, what with her first degree then her PhD, and it was a bit of a
"lump in the throat moment" to drive away after we'd loaded up. We'd intended to have a "final
breakfast" at Frankie and Benny's in Fountain Park, but they don't open
until 9:00 and we were ready to leave at 8:10, so we went to McDonalds in
Berwick-upon-Tweed instead which was very nice and a fitting "full
stop" - or maybe a semi-colon - in Hannah's educational journey. Next month she starts her first full time
job!
We spent a few days up at
the caravan, which alternated between very hot and pouring rain on what seemed
like an almost hourly basis, but which was actually only daily. The key entertainment was watching the croft
owners using a mini-digger to remove rhododendron bushes (which are weeds up
there). It ranks alongside
"Bones" in entertainment value.
Ian also had some work with UHI so than necessitated a trip to Inverness
which is never a hardship.
We've kept the big new
until last, though. You'll recall we
we're considering adopting a rescue dog and we have spent a good deal of time
in July and August visiting rescue centres, seeing all kinds of dog (often
embodied in one animal). After a lot of
thinking, an interview, a home visit and a great deal of reading around the
subject, we have reserved Tara who will join us in September. We'll begin yet another chapter of our
history as a family. . and we'll tell you
all about it here.
July 2019
Last month I promised to
tell you about the photograph of the Forth Bridges, above. Well, here you go!
In February 2015, Lois
was in Scotland visiting Hannah in Edinburgh and decided to drop in to South
Queensferry to see if she could find out about the building of the Forth
Replacement Crossing, as it was called then.
Construction had been going on since 2011 and it was due to open in
2016, so it was close to opening around the time of Ian’s 60th birthday, she
thought. Something linked to the bridge,
like a visit to an exhibition about the construction might make a suitable
additional birthday event. While
wandering along the narrow road through South Queensferry and admiring the
existing bridges that reached so high she spotted a small shop and studio on
the High Street called Words & Pictures.
Along with wedding and family portraits there was a nice print of the
Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge, plus another photograph of local
architecture. These took her eye and she
called in. She met Alistair Pryde, the
studio owner and chatted with him.
Between them a plan was hatched that involved a commissioned photograph
of the three Forth bridges, to be taken once the new crossing had been
completed. This was agreed and then the
wait for the perfect shot began.
Alistair quickly
realised, based on our brief and his creative knowledge, that a night-time
photograph would be best, but even after the formal opening by The Queen the
work on the bridge was still going on.
There were overnight lane closures (with all the orange flashing lights
necessary for those) and the bridge’s own lighting design was still under
discussion so was not yet in place.
Furthermore, there were still lots of construction paraphernalia on the
bridge – portacabins, plastic sheeting and so on. It didn’t make for a good photograph, so we
waited … sort of patiently. It wasn’t
until November 2018 that the works were finally completed and the construction
paraphernalia cleared away. So Alistair
had not been able to take advantage of the autumnal light which he favoured. Meanwhile he had been hunting around to
select the best spot from which to take the picture. We waited for further news. The winter weather, however, was very poor
which led to more delay. January 2019
Alistair had chosen the perfect location, but now faced another problem. The newly installed lighting to complete the
bridge was an issue. Alistair wrote:
“The lighting on the
Queensferry Crossing continues to frustrate us because it is so much more
intense than the lighting on the other two.
So shooting at dusk is the solution to this dilemma and will give us the
contrast that Ian wants, and will look spectacular in black and white.”
On 9 July 2019, we
collected the print!
The picture hangs on the
end wall of our dining room, alone and spectacular. The causeway in the foreground takes you as
you walk into the room from the other end and leads you forward into the
picture. On the left is the new
Queensferry Crossing, to the right is the Forth Road
Bridge. Look beneath the Road Bridge and
you can see the Forth Bridge.
Apart from the picture
(which obviously took over the month, really) we've fitted in another couple of
things. Ian had a very enjoyable couple
of days at UHI sitting on their assessment boards. Always very good discussion
and an excellent group of people.
He also had a day at the University of Sunderland Graduations - it's
always lovely to see the students crossing the stage.